INSPIRATION:Because so much of our architecture and products are created with the assistance/crutch of technological ability, there is potential for the love of materials to become lost. The CNC router has reduced material to plastic, as it is very plausible to make any shape, from nearly any material.
In an effort to restore a passion for material, it was important to create a product that explored the nature of specifically concrete and generate details that could not be created in another medium.

UNIQUE PROPERTIES / PROJECT DESCRIPTION:The Stasis Table implements the use of poly fiber reinforcing, allowing the possibilities of concrete to be pushed to its threshold. The concrete ranges from 1cm thick to 7cm, with the strength coming from shape deflection in the concave parabolic curves.
The Stasis Table does not work without all of the pieces acting together. The balance of the curves is only achieved when the glass is in place, acting with gravity to keep the entire piece in perfect balance.

OPERATION / FLOW / INTERACTION:Symmetry and balance are different. Symmetry is merely numerical, but balance can be interpreted, physical, perceived or felt. The Stasis Table makes use of the idea of balance, with every changing views depending on perspective
Concrete, similarly to the grain patter of wood, can be poured in the exact same form, with the exact same process, but will never have a perfectly replicated appearance. It is this degree of variety that gives each Stasis Table its unique nature and authenticity.

PROJECT DURATION AND LOCATION:The project began in the June of 2015 in the work shop of Solid & Void in New Jersey, United States of America, and concluded in the same location in September of that year.

FITS BEST INTO CATEGORY:Furniture, Decorative Items and Homeware Design

PRODUCTION / REALIZATION TECHNOLOGY:The Stasis Table uses concrete, aluminum and glass. The concrete is reinforced with fiberglass and tension rods. The "broken" part of the concrete is intended to demonstrate the unique nature of the piece, and disallow for it to be exactly recreated by technological innovation. All of the pieces must work together to acheive a state of rest, where as the removal of one element alters the position of the remaining ones.

RESEARCH ABSTRACT:Concrete has been in use for thousands of years, but it is only in the last decade that technology has paved way to provide the tools necessary to create objects like the Stasis Table. Some of the methods used here were custom mixing plasticizer to reduce the amount of water needed (and decrease the slump of the concrete), free form rubber molds to create the type of shape, poly fibers that allowed for it to be poured "upside down", where the concrete appears to flip over.

CHALLENGE: The greatest challenge in the creation of the Stasis Table was to create a form that could allow for pouring from any direction. Creating curves in two dimensions is relatively easy, but allowing for things to rotate in the Z direction simultaneously proved quite challenging, when dealing with a material that is at the time of its inception, fully liquid.

PROFILE:Solid & Void:
There are natural forces at work that dictate how things behave. The tree leans because of its proximity to sun, birds fly south and water flows. The same force that told a river to flow a certain way through the woods, also told the beaver to build the dam to impede that river. When a beaver builds a dam, the beaver isn’t in conflict with his environment, he is part of it. There should always be a harmonious undercurrent in a design that responds to and informs the environment it is in. To design as unapologetically as the beaver is to create a product that is so fitting with where it is placed, that the setting would appear incomplete without it.

NOMINATION DETAILS

The Stasis Table Coffee Table by Mike Pond is a Nominee in Furniture, Decorative Items and Homeware Design Category.

· This project is currently confidential as results have not been announced yet. Images and further details of the project is not available for public yet, please check back later. If you are the owner of this design, please login to view the images.